Description

Circa 1859. 2-storey and attic, 4-bay, rectangular-plan, multi-gabled Tudor style house with 2-storey canted bay window to W, arched windows to attic, stone-mullioned bipartite windows with bracketed canopies at 1st floor of E and W elevations, deep eaves, plain bargeboards and scrolled cast-iron gable finials. Squared, snecked, stugged red sandstone with polished ashlar dressings. Raised, chamfered window margins with projecting cills; raised quoin-strips.

W (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: central 2-leaf timber panelled door with fanlight in plain chamfered architrave; small stone canopy above. Gable to right with 2-storey, 3-light canted bay window; round-arched window to gable apex. Gable to left of centre: advanced tripartite window to ground; bipartite window above with bracketed canopy; arched window to gable apex. Lower, slightly recessed service wing to outer left; square hoodmould to 1st floor window.

E (ROAD) ELEVATION: irregularly fenestrated elevation with variety of window shapes. Half-glazed timber boarded back door to left-hand gable; basket-arched staircase window; bipartite window to 1st floor; round-arched window to attic. Bipartite windows at both floors to right-hand gable. Hoodmoulded 1st floor window to service wing.

N AND S (SIDE) ELEVATIONS: 2 round-arched windows at ground floor and attic to S. Timber-boarded back door with fanlight to N; bipartite gabled dormer above.

Predominantly plate glass in timber sash and case windows; some 4-pane glazing to E. Corniced ridge stacks with octagonal yellow clay cans. Graded grey slate.

INTERIOR: half-glazed timber panelled door to lobby. Marble chimneypieces to principal rooms. Curved timber staircase with decorative cast-iron baluster and mahogany handrail. Decorative cornicing and some ceiling roses to principal rooms; plainer cornicing elsewhere; some working shutters; timber-panelled interior doors throughout.

ANCILLARY BUILDING: single-storey former coalshed or out-store with timber-boarded stable door, crenellated parapet, and window to E. Curved wall to W, formerly forming screened link to house.

GARDEN TERRACE AND STEPS: terraced garden with sandstone steps.

Statement of Interest

Formerly called Beechgrove. A large unaltered mid-Victorian villa occupying a relatively prominent position on Eglinton Terrace. If the house was built when, or soon after the land was sold in 1859, it must be one of the first houses to have been built in Upper Skelmorlie. Skelmorlie was developed from the mid 1840s onwards, when the Earl of Eglinton began to feu his land for the building of 'Marine Villas'. The first house to be built, in 1844, was Beach House at the North end of Shore Road. For the first 15 years or so, development was very slow, and the 1st edition OS map (surveyed in 1857) shows only 12 villas along Shore Road, and none in Upper Skelmorlie. From about 1860, however, development began to speed up, and a number of large villas, were built along Shore Road as weekend or holiday homes for wealthy West Coast merchants. At about the same time, the Earl of Eglinton made plots available on the cliff top, and development began in Upper Skelmorlie.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77781166

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)